


The Cuteness Gauntlet

by Cheriluvs10



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Crack, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-23
Updated: 2014-10-25
Packaged: 2018-02-22 08:26:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2501162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cheriluvs10/pseuds/Cheriluvs10
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Twelfth Doctor. Crackfic. The Doctor has faced some terrifying things before but nothing as terrifying as...The Cuteness Gauntlet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

A/N: Complete crack fic just because I love how Peter Capaldi portrays the Doctor in all his grumpiness. Enjoy!

Chapter One

Twelve stood before the throne and glared at its occupant. The woman sitting on it was wearing a large baby pink ball gown reminiscent of Glinda from The Wizard of Oz. She had long brown hair that went down to her toes and she was painted up to look like a geisha. The woman had kidnapped him and Clara, plucking them off a planet the moment they left the TARDIS and beaming them on to her ship. The ship was just as pink as her dress and was filled with cute and fluffy things. In fact, the room they were in was not only pink but was covered with adorable cat posters. The woman called herself Arabella, Queen of Castabella, which the Doctor had not heard of and frankly didn't care about. Now Clara was missing, spirited away from his side by cute pink robots with kitten faces and he was standing here before the throne waiting to hear his fate.

"What have you done with Clara?" he demanded.

"Ah, you mean your wife?" Arabella said in a high pitched, tinkly kind of voice that the Doctor found nauseating.

"No. I mean Clara, the girl that travels with me. Where is she?"

"We are going to cutesify her."

"And what exactly does that mean?"

"It means that here on my planet, everything is cute if you hadn't noticed."

"Noooo, really? And here I thought you had these cat posters on the walls because you were the bleedin' RSPCA or something."

Arabella frowned for a moment and then smiled.

"You do not like cute?" she said to him.

"Not really."

"But in order to live among us, you must like cute and be cute and dress cute."

"Well, I suppose I'm not gonna live among ya then, huh?"

"You have no choice, you must become cute."

"No, you have no choice. Give Clara back to me or I'll ram your fluffy, frilly dress down your narrow little throat and choke the living life out of ya."

"Tsk, tsk, such a sour demeanor. That is a naughty no-no here in my kingdom."

"Well, I'm sorry if reality in the form of me has rained on your neverending cuteness parade but you're the one that sucked us up here, and now I'm telling you to let us go!"

"I will…on one condition."

"You shut up and give me Clara, is that the condition you're thinking about?"

"No, you must run…"

She paused for dramatic effect. The Doctor sighed and rolled his eyes while he debated punching the gaudy makeup off her chubby, baby face.

"You must run…" Arabella repeated and then paused for another dramatic pause.

"GET ON WITH IT!" the Doctor yelled at her.

"You must run…THE CUTENESS GAUNTLET!" she yelled as she raised her hands up to the sky.

She froze with her arms in the air to guage the Doctor's reaction. The Doctor returned her gaze with a combination bored and annoyed look on his face.

"I suppose I should ask what the Cuteness Gauntlet is now so you'll get on with it and tell me," the Doctor said after thirty seconds of no movement and silence. "I hate to deprive your of thirty more dramatic pauses and melodramatic vocalization while you describe precisely what running the Cuteness Gauntlet entails."

"The Cuteness Gauntless is a maze. But…not just any maze…"

The Doctor sighed when she paused for another dramatic pause.

"It is made up of cuteness," she finally said.

"Noooo, really? How shocking!"

"I shall put Clara at the end of it and you must run the gauntlet in order to save her. Make it to the end and you shall have her back. But…beware…someone like you will inevitably surrender to all the cuteness and become like me!"

"Yeah, sure I will," the Doctor said. "And that's it, is it? Just run your daft little maze with cute things in it and I get Clara back just like that?"

"Ah, the Cuteness Gauntlet is deceptive though," Arabella said, holding up a finger. "Many have tried to resist the cuteness but so far all have failed."

"We're the failures all spineless pudding brains then?"

"Talk all you like but we will see what you're really made of once you enter…"

The Doctor rolled his eyes at yet another dramatic pause.

"The gauntlet, yeah, I get that," he said.

"The gauntlet," Arabella said, ignoring him.

The Doctor snorted.

"Fine, put me in the Cuteness Gauntlet then before I die of boredom listening to you blather on about cuteness," he said to her.

"Very well! Guards, prepare him for the Cuteness Guantlet!" Arabella said dramatically.

The Doctor sighed and rolled his eyes again when the kitty faced guard robots entered the room.

"Some days it's better to just stay in the TARDIS and read," he muttered to himself as he followed the kitty guards out the door.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

Twelve muttered to himself. The guards had taken him to another part of the ship and put him in front of a wooden, pink door that was decorated with flowers and hearts. That was bad enough but the guards also forced him to surrender his usual conservative Doctor outfit and made him put on a pink ballerina outfit with pink tutu, slippers and a diamond tiara. Arabella made it clear that if he were to remove any of these items, he would never see Clara again. So he suffered in silence while he waited for someone to tell him to go.

"Are you ready?" Arabella said as her voice boomed over a speaker mounted in the ceiling above him.

"As ready as I'll ever be, just open the door!" the Doctor yelled.

"Very well. Prepare to enter…"

"THE CUTENESS GAUNTLET, YES, I KNOW!" the Doctor yelled when she paused for another pause.

"Enter!" Arabella said melodramatically.

"You're gonna think "Enter!" when my fist enters your face," the Doctor growled as he stepped forward.

He opened the door and shielded his eyes when bright sunlight hit his face. He kept his hand over his eyes while he entered the room. There was loud birdsong all around him and it took him a moment to adjust to the bright sunlight as the door slammed shut behind him and loudly locked itself. The Doctor took a look around. The sky was perfectly blue, the sun had a happy face on it and the trees were all painted rainbow colors with happy, singing rainbow colored birds flitting among them. He was standing on a dirt path that went straight ahead into a rainbow tree forest.

"Hello."

The Doctor frowned when he heard a deep voice coming from somewhere. He looked around but all he could see were the deliriously happy birds.

"Up here, mate."

The Doctor looked up and the Sun smiled at him.

"Hello there," he said to the Doctor.

The Doctor was amazed when he realized he could stare at the sun without any discomfort.

"Welcome to the Cuteness Gauntlet," the Sun said with a deep voice. "Here you will find a cuteness paradise."

"I'm looking for my friend, Clara, is she in here?"

The Sun rose higher in the sky and tilted so he was looking down.

"Ah yes, here she is, right at the end of the path," the Sun said, looking back at him. "Good luck finding her."

"Is she safe?" the Doctor said.

"I believe so. She's just sitting on a bench. Well, chained to it actually but still sitting there. Actually, she's quite cute. She's wearing a puffy blue party dress."

"Which I'm sure she hates," the Doctor said.

"Nah, everyone loves cuteness here," the Sun said.

"Not me and I'm going to beat this Cuteness Gauntlet and get her back."

"Suit yourself. I'll be watching your progress. Can't help you unfortunately as I have no arms but still, best of luck."

"Thanks," the Doctor said.

The Sun whistled a happy tune to himself as the Doctor started down the path. As he walked, the birds began to fly around his head and he batted at them when they got in his face and chirped cheerfully.

"Go away and mate with each other or something," the Doctor said, waving away a particularly annoying bird that was flying circles around his head.

He sighed when the bird landed on his right shoulder instead and continue to chirp cheerfully in his ear. He felt self conscious in the ballerina outfit and imagined Clara dying of laughter at the sight of him.

He entered the forest, half expecting it to suddenly get dark and spooky but instead it was just all rainbows and sunshine and merriment, except for the Doctor who was all dour and sour and grumpy. The bird continued to sit on his shoulder and every time the Doctor tried to swat at it, it would fly up and land back on his shoulder again so eventually the Doctor just ignored it.

Eventually, the cuteness was beginning to gnaw at him and he gritted his teeth as the birdsong became louder and more annoying.

"Stop it!" he finally yelled.

Everything fell silent for a moment, even the bird on his shoulder and then it just started up again, louder and more insistent. The Doctor gnashed his teeth and balled up his fists and started to run, hoping to zoom through the maze and be done with it. Then, to his shock, a large doe bounded out of the woods and he had to stop short to avoid barreling into it. He stopped and stared at the rainbow colored doe with huge doe eyes and a dopey humanlike smile. He glanced at his shoulder and was amazed to see that the bird had hung on, despite the running and he realized that the maze was going to be tougher than he thought.

"Well, what do you want?" he asked the deer.

To his surprise, the doe reared up on her hind legs and began to dance around, quite elegantly as several nearby birds flew around her in complicated patterns. The Doctor sighed and tried to step around the deer, but no matter where he went, the deer stepped in front of him and continued to dance.

"Yes, I get it, you're so cute you're twee, now let me pass!" the Doctor yelled at the deer.

He flinched when the deer walked towards him, put her front legs up on his shoulders, a move that dislodged the bird the Doctor noticed, and to his shock, kissed him right on the lips. The Doctor tried to push the deer away but somehow he was rooted to the spot. The deer kissed him for twenty seconds before pulling back with a loud "Mwah!" and then giggled as the Doctor stared at her in shock. The doe fluttered her eyes at him as the Doctor gritted his teeth, tensed his muscles and then flung the deer backwards with one enormous shove.

"Get out of my way, Bambi, before I cut off your head and put it on my wall!" he growled at the deer as she went down on all four feet to avoid falling on her ass.

The Doctor wiped the deer saliva off his lip while the deer whistled cheerfully and pranced back into the forest. The Doctor took a step and found that he could walk again but before he could take another step, the bird was back on his shoulder whistling its cheerful tune. The Doctor muttered curses under his breath as he continued to walk through the woods.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

The Doctor continued walking along the path by now used to the little bird on his shoulder and its annoyingly cheerful song. Up ahead there was a bend in the path to the left and when he reached it, he noticed a covered bridge about twenty feet away. He stopped in his tracks and studied it. The exterior was the same rainbow color as the rest of the forest but inside, it was nice and dark and spooky looking. The Doctor smiled at that, happy to have something that wasn't screaming twee at his face and he sped up slightly, although he kept his eyes peeled for any dancing wildlife coming out of the forest.

But the moment his foot stepped inside the bridge, the whole thing lit up and the Doctor groaned when it was more rainbow colors and birds flapping around inside it. Add to that nauseating musak as he went through it and he suddenly felt his spirits slipping a bit. That made him stop in his tracks as he suddenly realized what was going on.

"Observation," he said to himself, "all of this is designed to sap my morale. It's so cute it's depressing, at least for me, and the fact that I can't escape it and it's one big cuteness overload is causing me to become depressed and when I become depressed, I can be more easily controlled and susceptible to others and their influence. Oho, very clever, very clever indeed. Well, this place isn't going to get the best of me! I will fight the cuteness with sarcasm! All righty then, you asked for it!"

The Doctor, filled with renewed hope and vigor sauntered on with confidence that he could outwit the gauntlet and get Clara back.

"Hey, Arabella! Is this all you got in ya? Rainbow colors and singing birds?" he yelled up at the ceiling of the bridge while he walked through it. "Come on, Glinda, give me a real challenge! Make me turn to the cute side!"

Suddenly, there was a flash of light in front of him and Hello Kitty appeared. The Doctor stopped in his tracks and looked down at her. She was wearing a pink dress with a tiny rainbow on it and had a little pink bow by her left ear. Hello Kitty waved cheerfully at the Doctor. The Doctor smirked at that as the kitten continued to wave silently at him.

"Well, well, well, if it isn't Hello Shitty," he said as the kitten stared up at him and lowered her paw. "You do know that you're not a cat, right? You're just some daft human child with an unhealthy cat fetish? I read about it online somewhere. Probably some site called Stuff That Interests Pudding Brains or something like that. Anyway, time to go find a litter box, Hello Shitty. People who live in reality have to go and find their friends."

Hello Kitty stared at him for a moment before it began to dance around him. Then when Hello Kitty turned her back to him as part of the dance, the Doctor kicked her hard in the backside, sending her flying up and out of the bridge.

"Goodbye Hello Kitty!" the Doctor yelled at her at he cupped his hand against the side of his mouth, "Go find a backpack to decorate or go find a therapist and move past the whole dressing like a cat thing, one or the other!"

Invigorated by the fact that he found he could kick Hello Kitty like a football, he carried on, walking out of the bridge. The bird continued to chirp in his ear and the Doctor, finding he had enough of it, stopped.

"Hey, Tweety on my shoulder, if you want to continue to live, you will vacate your perch immediately or you and your friends will end up four and twenty rainbow birds baked in a pie and I'm not joking about this. So piss off!"

The bird fell silent and finally looked at the Doctor. Seeing the enraged look on his face, the bird finally flew off and the Doctor breathed a sigh of relief. He stood there a moment, waiting for the bird to come back and when it didn't he walked on, a smug grin on his face.

There was another curve in the path that veered to the right and when the Doctor turned, he heard tiny singing coming from either side of the path. High pitched voices were singing "La la lalalala," repeatedly. The Doctor, confident he could handle whatever the gauntlet threw his way, walked over to where the voices were coming from, looked off to the right of the path and noticed a smurf village nestled in the rainbow colored grass. To his amazement, the Smurfs were still blue instead of being rainbow colored and many of them were outside their mushroom homes going about their business while they la la la-ed in unison. The Doctor checked the other side of the path and found the rest of the village, including Papa Smurf who was talking to some random smurf outside a mushroom house near the center of the village. The Doctor watched them with fascination for a moment before deciding just to walk on and let them be. But when he turned, he noticed thirty smurfs were now coming from the other side of the path and heading towards him, all smiles and cheerfulness and la la-ing. The Doctor sighed as the smurfs gathered around him and began to dance in unison while keeping up the la la song. And he noticed that now, the smurfs on the other side were noticing him and walking over to join in the celebration.

"Well, I was going to pass by and ignore you lot but you asked for it," the Doctor said with a shrug.

The smurfs stopped singing and stood frozen to the spot when the Doctor let out a mighty roar, flung his hands up to the sky and began to walk to the village on the right as he yelled out, "I'M GODZILLA, ROOOOOAR!" The smurfs yelled as the Doctor stomped into the village and began stomping his feet as the remaining smurfs in the village ran for cover. The Doctor roared at the panicked stricken smurfs and stomped his feet some more, taking care not to smash the houses but still trying to scare the bejesus out of them as they fled from the village.

"ROOOOAR, I LOVE TO EAT SMURFS!" the Doctor said as he stomped his feet and waved his arms around.

He waited till every smurf had cleared out of the village before he turned and stomped his way back towards the path, roaring and flinging his arms around while the smurfs screamed and fled down into the other village.

"ROOOOOOAR!" the Doctor said, standing in the middle of the path, enjoying himself as he continued his monster routine.

He smiled and stopped flailing and roaring when all of the smurfs were out of his way and hiding in the other village. Whistling cheerfully, he put his hands in his pockets and strolled off in search of Clara.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four

The Doctor continued to walk through the forest, confident with each passing moment that he could beat the gauntlet and find Clara at the end of it. As he walked, he heard someone clearing his throat above him and he looked up to see the Sun had moved overhead.

"Hello there," he said to the Doctor.

The Doctor found he like the Sun, at least for the moment. The Sun wasn't in his face, chirping away or kissing him on the lips or trying to be annoying. It had a cartoony face but the Doctor figured he could live with that after the heaps of rainbow birds.

"Hello, Mister Sun, enjoying the day?" the Doctor said.

"I am. Are you enjoying the outing?" the Sun said.

"I am now that I know I can beat this little game and find my friend. Is she still sitting on the bench?"

"Yes. She's unharmed."

"Good. Hope it stays that way. Well, gotta get back to getting to her so if you don't mind…"

"Not at all, enjoy your walk."

The Doctor smiled when the Sun floated away.

"See, you can be cute without being in your face cute," he muttered to himself as he carried on down the path.

He walked for another ten minutes when the next obstacle came into view. He stopped short when several multicolored unicorns came out of the forest on both sides and blocked his path. Unlike the birds, the unicorns were different colors but not rainbow colored. All of them had golden horns and hooves and snow white manes and tails. The Doctor and the unicorns stood about ten feet apart from each other, sizing one another up.

"Could you lot go away, I'm trying to walk here," the Doctor finally said.

The unicorns nickered and snorted but remained put. The Doctor sighed and shook his head.

"No one has learned that it isn't wise to mess with me," he said as he walked towards them.

He stopped when the unicorns began to prance around him in a tightly formed ring. He watched them for a moment and then suddenly, he leapt onto the back of a purple colored one and wrapped his arms around its neck while the horse whinnied and tried to kick him off. The Doctor held on for dear life, vaguely aware that the other unicorns had stopped and were now off to the side, watching what was going on but not interfering.

"Come on, My Little Pony, cooperate with me!" the Doctor yelled as the unicorn spun around in a circle and bucked its back legs.

"Finally, after a few minutes, the unicorn began to tire and slowly came to a stop while the Doctor breathed a sigh of relief and slid off its side. The horse was looking back at him, whinnying softly but it was not fighting him or trying to escape. The Doctor patted its neck.

"Okay, Secretariat, you are going to help me since you didn't clear the path," he said to the horse. "I am going to ride you and you are going to tolerate it or I'm going to turn your sorry carcass into purple glue, that understood?"

The unicorn nickered and the Doctor hoped that meant yes as he bent underneath briefly to check the sex of the animal.

"A girl, eh?" he said. "Okay…let's see if you'll let me ride you then, madam."

He clambered onto the unicorn's back and waited for a response when he was settled in. The unicorn whinnied a moment, seemingly in protest, but didn't fight him. He glanced over and noticed the other unicorns were standing off to the side, watching but not interfering in any way.

"So," the Doctor said, turning his attention back to his mount, "what's your name then?"

The horse whinnied and the Doctor made a face.

"Sparkle Dancer? Ugh, I need a bath after this just to get all the cuteness off of me. But we have to work with what we have so…forward, Sparkle Dancer, take me to Clara."

Since there were no reins, the Doctor held on to a bit of the mane and hoped for the best as the unicorn turned and headed away from the rest of the herd. Riding the animal proved to be soothing and he found he didn't mind the garish rainbow colors as much once he got used to the clippity clop rhythm of his new mount. As he rode, he heard chirping behind him and he shifted to look what was there and groaned when he noticed the shoulder bird was now riding with him, perched near the tail while it chirped.

"You just don't give in, do ya?" he said to the bird. "Alright, you can stay but the moment you land on my shoulder, I'm ripping your beak off your body, got that?"

He faced the front again and even though the bird was chirping behind him, he found that he could ignore it by concentrating on the rhythm of the unicorn's stride. But just when he thought he was in the clear, he noticed a flock of birds was flying overhead and coming his way. They were carrying a rainbow flower garland in their talons and the Doctor let out a frustrated sigh when they dropped it on his head and it slipped down around his forehead and formed a cute flower halo.

"I hate this place," he muttered to himself.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

The Doctor breathed a sigh of relief when five minutes later, they were at the edge of the forest and he could see green hills beyond it. The Doctor was surprised he could see the green since he figured that there'd been so much rainbow color over the past half hour that it would take him months to see anything else but. But as they headed out of the forest, he noticed two small chubby, female, cherublike urchins were standing by the side of the road, looking up at him with anime sized eyes. Both of the little girls were dressed in impossibly white, non soiled dresses and had long flowing blonde hair that rippled in the breeze.

"Please come and play…" one of the girls started to say.

"Sod off," the Doctor said, silencing her as he rode past them.

A couple of gray mice wearing pretty pink bows around their necks scampered on two feet onto the path.

"Hello!" they squeaked at him in high pitched voices as they waved to him.

"Shove off and die!" the Doctor said as he rode past them.

Strawberry Shortcake appeared in a flash of white light in front of him.

"I'm berry, berry pleased to see you…AAAAAAAAH!" she screamed when the Doctor urged Sparkle Dancer to speed up and she had to run off the path to avoid being stampeded.

The Doctor slowed his horse back to walking speed when he passed her and smirked as Strawberry Shortcake hurled curses at his back. Then there was another flash of light and Rainbow Brite and Twink the Star Sprite appeared at the side of the path.

"Help us," Rainbow Brite said to the Doctor as he neared her. "We need to spread rainbows all around the world and bring joy and happiness to people who need it most!"

The Doctor stopped Sparkle Dancer beside her and looked down for a moment in disdain while Rainbow Brite smiled cheerfully at him.

"Hey, is that your handiwork back there?" he said, pointing back to the rainbow forest. "Because you must have been dead pissed when you did it. You get drunk often, do ya, Rainbow Girl?"

"But you don't understand," Rainbow Brite said as she and Twink walked behind him once he urged Sparkle Dancer to move on away from her. "We have to make the world a better and more cheerful place and you have to help us."

The Doctor sighed. He shifted slightly on the horse and without warning, seized Shoulder Bird in a tight grip, choking off its incessant chirping, and sneered at it before he threw it at Rainbow Brite's face.

"Here, help this loony creature be less annoying so it'll stop landing on shoulders and giving people headaches with its nonstop cheeping!" he said to her before he turned back around. "I have better things to do than to help you and besides, this place has enough rainbows to last for centuries. Use some of them and leave me out of it!"

"Fuckface!" Rainbow Brite screeched at him.

"And proud of it!" the Doctor yelled cheerfully over his shoulder as he kept on going.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five

Finally, after what seemed like forever, the Doctor spotted Clara chained to a stone bench in the middle of a semi circle of rainbow hedges. She did have on a pouffy blue party dress and it was so huge, she looked like she was swimming in it. The Doctor couldn't resist a chuckle as she rode towards her. It took a moment for Clara to notice him but when she did, she leapt to her feet and then gasped as the weight of the dress made her teeter and she quickly sat down before she fell down.

"You won't believe the day I've been having," the Doctor said when he finally reached the bench.

He sat there, waiting while Clara finished laughing at the ballerina outfit, the flower halo and the purple unicorn. When the laughter died down, the Doctor finally spoke.

"Are you alright? Have you been harmed in any way?" he said to her.

"No, but…looks like you've been harmed plenty, you poor thing," Clara said, bemused.

"Yes, yes, I'm dressed like a ballerina on LSD and riding a multicolored unicorn. Can we move on and get to the part about rescuing you and getting out of here?"

"Well, I would move but this is sort of heavy and I can't stand up properly," Clara said, pulling at the bottom of the dress. "Plus, I'm chained to the bench. You wouldn't happen to have the sonic inside your tutu, would ya?"

"No, I'm afraid the ballerina outfit came without pockets," the Doctor said as he dismounted. "Still, there's always a solution."

He bent over to examine the chain. The chain was locked with a large padlock in two places. The beginning of the chain was looped around a stone leg of the bench; the other end was around Clara's left ankle. He squatted down as he examined the padlock around Clara's ankle. While he was looking at it, he felt Clara's finger press down on the top of his head.

"You're so cute," Clara cooed at him as she pressed down on his head again.

"Do that again and the finger will be broken off and shoved up your nose, Oswald," the Doctor said without looking up.

"Aw, don't be that way," Clara said to him. "Your other self would have found all this funny."

"My other self thought fezzes were the height of fashion," the Doctor said as he stuck his finger in the padlock's keyhole. "And yes, the nutter would probably love all this but I'm not him anymore so let's move on and change the subject, shall we?"

"You have very hairy legs," Clara said.

"And you have very chubby ankles so I wouldn't say anything if I were you," the Doctor said.

The Doctor let go of the padlock and stood up. He thought for a moment while he looked around for something to open it. Then he looked at Sparkle Dancer who was still nearby, munching on some grass while her tail lazily swished back and forth.

"Come here a mo, Sparkle Dancer, I need your horn for something," the Doctor said as he walked over to her.

"You're not seriously suggesting that unicorn can pick the lock with its horn," Clara said as the Doctor urged Sparkle Dancer to come near her.

"No, I'm seriously suggesting that unicorns have magical powers. If this is a cute world, then the unicorn ought to have magic powers. Right, Sparkle Dancer?"

Sparkle Dancer whinnied.

"Can you open that lock around her ankle, my friend?"

Sparkle Dancer nickered and put her horn down next to the lock. There was a tiny burst of sparkles at the tip of it and the lock fell open with a huge THUNK.

"Thank you, Sparkle Dancer," the Doctor said, patting her back while Clara breathed a sigh of relief and took the chain off her ankle. "So, let's get out of here, shall we?"

"If I can get up from the bench, we can," Clara said.

The Doctor snickered when she tried to stand but the overly heavy dress kept weighing her down.

"Will you help me?" she finally said after one minute.

The Doctor smiled fondly and held out his hand to her. She took it and he pulled her to her feet. Then steadied her when she started falling forward.

"What's in this dress, lead weights?" Clara said as the Doctor held on to her.

"I think it's overloaded with sheer cuteness," the Doctor replied as he helped her walk over to Sparkle Dancer.

Very slowly, he helped Clara up onto Sparkle Dancer's back and then he had to find a way to keep her on since the dress was causing her to slide off.

"Could Sparkle Dancer conjure up a saddle by any chance?" Clara said as she held on to the back of the unicorn's mane.

"If you want, you can strip off all your clothes and have my tutu," the Doctor said.

Clara glanced at him and a new fit of giggles erupted from her mouth.

"Shouldn't have said that," the Doctor muttered as Clara reaching over and patted his head.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Very slowly the Doctor guided Sparkle Dancer back towards the front entrance, hoping that the front entrance was still there. Clara held on for dear life as the movement of the horse made her teeter a bit and the Doctor had to help keep her steady as they went along. The Doctor also noticed that the Sun seemed to be following them but the Sun wasn't commenting on any thing, just providing some companionship and the Doctor wished that he could take his friend with him when he left.

When they reached the forest, the Doctor expected everything to come out of the woodwork and bother them again but to his surprise, there was nothing but the garish rainbow colors of the trees. Clara made a face at that.

"I was teleported to the bench, didn't see all this. Ugh, this is hard on the eyes."

"On the other hand, if someone wants to hold a gay pride day, this would be the perfect location for it," the Doctor replied.

The Doctor looked around as they walked.

"Where are the smurfs and the unicorns and the irritating birds, this doesn't bode well, I fear," he said.

"Wait, there were smurfs here?" Clara said.

"Yeah, on both sides of the path but they're not here now," the Doctor said, looking around. "And there's no birdsong and before that, it was deafening. I have a feeling we might be in for a shocking surprise before we escape."

Suddenly, there was a huge boom and the ground shook. Clara gasped and slid off Sparkle Dancer and landed on her butt on the ground as another boom shook the ground.

"Okay, I have a feeling that my theory is about to be proven correct," the Doctor said as another boom shook the forest.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Six

The Doctor sighed as the ground continued to shake.

"HEY!" he yelled up at the sky, "I ran your stupid gauntlet, now let's us go!"

He waited for an answer but all he got was more earth shaking booms.

"Doctor, I can't get up!" Clara said as she sat on the ground.

"You might want to be in the altogether, actually. I have a feeling that we're about to be visited by something large and horrendously cute."

"I'm not taking my clothes off, Doctor!"

"Fine, then sit there and be eaten or whatever," the Doctor said, waving his hand dismissively.

There was a few more seconds of earth shaking booms and then the Doctor's eyes widened when he looked up and noticed a fifty foot child was bending over to look down at him. The girl had a chubby, angelic face, big blue eyes, blond curls and a bit of drool flowing out of her petal pink lips. The girl looked down at the Doctor and pointed at him with a huge chubby finger.

"DOLLY!" it screeched in a high pitched voice.

"Oh bugger," the Doctor said.

"I WANT DOLLY!" the child said.

"Clara, get undressed now!" the Doctor yelled, running to avoid the child's hand when she tried to pick him up.

"COME BACK, DOLLY!" the child said as she tried to grab at the Doctor.

Meanwhile, Clara was trying to get her dress off her body as the Doctor did everything he could to distract the monster child and keep her attention away from his beleaguered companion. Clara looked around for Sparkle Dancer but the unicorn had bolted into the forest and was nowhere to be seen. Clara managed to get the back of the dress unzipped and was shrugging it off when suddenly the girl noticed her and her blood ran cold when the little girl stared down at her with wide eyes.

"DOLLY?" the girl said as her hand slowly moved towards Clara.

"WE GIVE UP!" the Doctor yelled at the sky as he ran towards Clara. "WE GIVE UP, YOU HEAR ME! GET US OUT OF HERE!"

The Doctor tugged at the dress, trying to get it off Clara while the child reached down to get them. She nearly had them in her grasp when suddenly the child screamed bloody murder. The Doctor jerked his head up and was amazed when the child ran away, weeping loudly as the ground shook from each footstep.

"What just happened?" Clara said as the thunderous footfalls receded into the distance. "What'd you do?"

"Nothing. At least, I don't know what I did to make the child go away," the Doctor said.

"That was me," the Sun said as it suddenly appeared overhead. "I heard your cries for help so I came over and burned her bum to get her to leave you alone."

"Thank you, my friend!" the Doctor said. "At least one person here is on our side. So…where's Sparkle Dancer then?" he said, looking around.

"I think it went off in search of shelter," Clara replied.

"Sensible idea. Why don't we go off in search of shelter as well?" the Doctor said.

The Doctor and Clara looked at one another.

"Well, are you going starkers or not?" the Doctor said. "I can't carry you."

Clara sighed and shrugged the dress off her body.

"This is soooo embarrassing," Clara said as she crawled out of the dress.

"Just pretend you're going to church," the Doctor replied.

He took off his tutu and held it out to her. Clara raised her eyebrow.

"And what's this supposed to cover?" she said.

"I don't know, put it around your breasts or something. I can't give you my ballerina outfit, can I?"

"Well, you could but that means looking at your naked body and that's something I don't want to see," Clara said.

She took the tutu and tried putting it around her breasts but it was too big. She sighed and tried putting it around her crotch and it wouldn't stay. Finally she straddled it and adjusted it so the back end was winding around her right thigh. She held both ends in her right hand and the Doctor sniggered as she gave him a sour look and walked towards the door. But when they got past the forest, Clara gasped and pointed off to the left. The Doctor looked at where she was pointing and his eyes bulged when he saw a fifty foot Barney the Dinosaur in the distance.

"I LOVE YOU!" it called to them.

"Christ, Clara, run for your life!" the Doctor yelled.

Clara forgot about the tutu and sprinted towards the door with the Doctor. They could see it up ahead but when the Doctor looked back over his shoulder, he noticed the Barney was just dancing around and not paying attention to them. Still, he didn't want to take chances so he flung himself against the door, tried it and began to pound on it when he found it was locked.

"LET US OUT, WE'VE BEATEN THE GUANTLET!" he screamed and he and Clara pounded.

Suddenly, a bright burst of light surrounding them. They shielded their eyes and when the light faded, they were back in the Throne Room in front of Arabella.

"Congratulations," she said to them. "You've beaten my gauntlet. How does that make you feel?"

She gasped when the Doctor lunged at her and put his hands around her neck as he got in her face.

"I'll tell you how it makes me feel," he growled at her. "It makes me feel like I want to kill you right here, right now and give your dead body to that giant child in there. Now tell me…how does that make you feel?"

"I was just having a laugh," Arabella stuttered as the Doctor's eyes bored into her. "Nothing would have happened to you in there. It was just a joke."

"NOTICE HOW I'M NOT LAUGHING!" the Doctor roared at her. "NOW TAKE US BACK TO THE TARDIS AND IF YOU EVER MUCK WITH US AGAIN, I WILL TAKE YOU TO THE DARKEST, MOST DEPRESSING, MOST NON-CUTE PLACE IN THE UNIVERSE AND LET YOU ROT THERE! GOT THAT?"

Arabella flinched at the rage on the Doctor's face and nodded meekly. She breathed a sigh of relief when the Doctor let go of her neck and stepped back towards Clara. The Doctor gave her a pointed look and folded his arms over his chest.

"Any time now would be good," he said to her.

Arabella glared at them, took a tiny remote control out of her dress and pushed a button. There was another flash and when the light faded, they were standing in front of the TARDIS. Clara practically clawed the door down in the rush to get her naked body inside and to her room. The Doctor sighed and shook his head as he followed her inside and shut the door. Several seconds later, the TARDIS dematerialized and vanished completely.

THE END.


End file.
